Volume of distribution terms for a drug (ceftriaxone) exhibiting concentration-dependent protein binding. II. Physiological significance.

Guidelines presented previously for the analysis of plasma concentration versus time data for a drug exhibiting concentration-dependent plasma protein binding were successfully applied to the distributional parameters of a new cephalosporin, ceftriaxone. This approach provided several striking observations when the pharmacokinetics of ceftriaxone in a healthy and uremic population were re-examined. First, the parameter -fp converted the apparent dose-dependent distributional terms of ceftriaxone into a function of the concentration-dependent plasma protein binding. Second, a strong correlation between the term VUSS and the reciprocal of -fp was established within each of the two populations. While this -fp term accounted for the variability within the respective populations due to ceftriaxone-albumin binding differences, it did not account for all of the distributional differences between the two populations. The present analysis revealed that the altered physiologic state of uremia (larger plasma volumes and interstitial to intravascular albumin ratios), in addition to differences in plasma protein binding, dictated the distribution of ceftriaxone in healthy and uremic subjects. Furthermore, the binding-disposition model which accounts for the presence of plasma proteins outside the vascular space, was established to be appropriate in describing the distribution of ceftriaxone.